


Like You Used To

by gilligankane



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-10
Updated: 2009-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-17 10:15:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She becomes Luna and she stops dreaming and she starts looking at you, not as if you have the answers, but like you’ll suddenly disappear if she closes her eyes for too long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like You Used To

Before the war, you don’t promise her you’ll come back to her.

She doesn’t even know you want to come back to her; not yet. When you’re gone, she’ll find the note you left her and then she’ll know, but when you leave for the war, with Harry and Ron by your side and your portable library in your knapsack, you don’t say a word.

Before the war, you don’t realize how precious every moment is.

\---

“What if something happens,” she asks in the quiet of the morning, before the Army is romping through the campsite you’ve built.

“Something  _will_  happen,” you answer truthfully.

“But what if it happens to  _you_?”

You pause and think – even if you’ve thought about this before, you still like to think before you answer – and finally you open your mouth, slowly. “Then we keep on fighting. We keep trying to win. One death won’t stop us; it  _can’t_  stop us from defeating Voldermort.”

She doesn’t say anything, but she sighs.

“That’s why you’ll get killed,” she whispers eventually,

\---

She changes. Not right after the beginning of the war; she’s still the same “Looney” Lovegood she was back in school. But somewhere between Dean Thomas’ death and her father being thrown in the Death Eater’s Azkaban, she stops walking around with her head in the clouds and her feet hovering about the ground.

She changes and you don’t even stop sprinting –  _running_  – long enough to realize she doesn’t talk about Nargles stealing her shoes or Threstals swooping down from the sky.

She becomes  _Luna_  and she stops dreaming and she starts looking at you, not as if you have the answers, but like you’ll suddenly disappear if she closes her eyes for too long. She becomes  _Luna_  and there’s no more time for stories.

Only time to run.

\---

During the war, in a bunker somewhere between Hogwarts and Godric’s Hollow, you turn to her and use her, like she’s just another warm body; like she doesn’t mean anything to you.

And she takes it: the kisses that miss her mouth and the words that start loud and end in a whisper. She takes the muted screams and the fingers digging into the soft part of skin.

You’d like to think it’s because she needs it just as bad as you do: someone to hold onto; something to stay grounded for. But you know it’s only because _you_  need it, and she’s always been about saving you when you’re at your lowest. She’s always saving you.

You’re always disappointing her, like some sick cycle of normalcy.

In her eyes –  _God, her bright blue eyes_  – you can see the strands of the dreams she once had, twisted and blackened by anger and fear and heartbreak. You can see yourself suspended there, your eyes lost and hollow and your skin sallow and stretched thin. You see the both of you, caught up in a web of lies and deceit and in the instinct to run, instead of fighting the way you are.

In those eyes, you can see your parents who don’t remember you and the friends you’ve lost and the friends you’ll lose and when she blinks, you’ve got a moment to breathe.

She helps you breath, but you treat her like she’s just another warm body.

\---

There’s a moment you almost tell her, right after Ron dies, but the words stick to the roof of your mouth and won’t come out no matter how hard you try.

“Hermione.” She’s standing at the end of your bed, but you don’t roll over and you don’t move.

You lost one of your best friends today.

You lost Harry a long time before this, even if he’s still breathing and speaking and moving, but you  _finally_  lost Ron and you’ve had enough.

You’re  _done_.

“Hermione,” she says again, this time a little louder, dropping onto the bed next to you. “You need to…”

“I need to  _what_? Ron’s dead,” you hiss.

She flinches.

“But  _you’re_  alive,” she protests.

 _I love you_  is what you  _should_  say.

“Not for long,” is what you  _do_  say.

\---

After the war, when there’s only death and destruction and more bodies to bury and more families to tell, you forget to tell her you thought about her every day.

You forgot, in between burying Neville and comforting Mrs. Abbott, that she doesn’t know how her eyes guided you through the darkest alleys and the smell of her perfume led you through the hardest missions.

After the war, when there’s nothing but ash between your fingers left, you forget to thank her for getting you through the nights and the days you spent alone.

\---

The death toll is high; the survivor’s numbers are less.

Ron’s gone, Harry’s broken beyond repair, Ginny is off touring the country, running from her nightmares.

Luna’s the only one who stays behind to help you clean up the wreckage; the only one who has the guts to scratch names into pieces of parchments, to send off letters of condolences. Luna is the only one who has the nerve to force you out of bed and to eat and to drink and to breathe.

Luna has that unique distinction of being one of the few people who could ever – who  _still_  is – making you do something.

“Hermione,” she pokes and prods, pulling the covers of the bed back. “Hermione you need to get up now.”  _No_ , you want to tell her.  _No, what I_ need _is for you to dance around in circles for no reason and I need you to tell me all about the magical creatures you see and I need you to take Harry’s Time Turner and bring us back to when Hogwarts was still a school and when Dumbledore was still alive and I need you to ask me on a date, take me to Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer. I need you to be Looney Lovegood and to tell me that there’s a magical creature that can fix this all._

“Why are you still here?” you ask, burrowing further under the covers as she pulls them off. “Why don’t you go back to your father and  _your_  life.”

She frowns and drops the comforter back onto the bed, then slides under it right next to you, not touching you, but close enough so that you can smell her perfume and the undertones of fire.

“Because they’re gone Hermione.” She states it so casually it makes your heart clench.

“My life is gone.  _You’re_  what’s left.”

“I need you,” you whisper into the fabric of the bedding.

“I know,” she whispers just as softly.

“Please don’t leave,” you beg.

“I won’t.”

\---

Before Hogwarts, Luna Lovegood was an imaginary friend: the magical part of your life that flourished from your imagination and was almost too good to be true.

After Hogwarts – after the war, and Voldermort and after Harry and Ron and Neville – Luna Lovegood is the only thing that keeps you rooted to reality.

It’s funny how things change like that.

Luna just smiles; you smile too.

And then Luna dances, telling you that the Wracksprut is chasing her and she’s trying to get rid of it.

You wouldn’t mind if the Wracksprut chased her all day.


End file.
